Scottish Archaeological Internet Reports

The remains of the south-west corner of the 12th-century Cistercian abbey cloister at Dundrennan (National Grid Reference: NX 7492 4750) were cleared of rubble and 19th-century landscaping infill over four seasons of fieldwork in the early 1990s. Elements of the warming house, novice's day room, great drain and latrine block undercroft were revealed. Coupled with a short programme of geophysical survey and test-trenching, new evidence of the sequence of building for the abbey was revealed by excavation. The project was funded by Historic Scotland.

Hebridean sites of the coastal sand cliffs and associated machair, or sandy plain have been known for many years. Artefacts and ecofacts of various types have long been collected from archaeological sites in the eroding sand-cliffs of the machairs of the Outer Hebrides. Early in 1983, personnel of the then Central Excavation Unit of Historic Scotland's predecessor revisited very nearly all of the coastal archaeological sites then known in the Long Isle, with the specific task of identifying those at immediate threat from coastal erosion and of assessing the feasibility of their excavation or preservation. Some 32 sites were seen to be undergoing active erosion; at nine of them preservation was not being pursued and excavation was feasible. These sites were of two morphotypes: sites exposed in roughly vertical sand-cliffs and sites exposed over relatively large horzontal areas of sand deflation. It was decided to examine one sand-cliff site along its exposed face. The site selected was Balelone in North Uist, its excavation designed to explore both the problems associated with the excavation of deep midden sites with complex stratigraphy and the not-inconsiderable problems of excavation in sand. In the light of the Balelone trial excavation, a new approach was called for. A structured approach aimed firstly at establishing the three-dimensional extent of the sites to be examined. Four sites were then sampled (the sand-cliff sites of Baleshare, on the island of the same name off the west coast of North Uist and Hornish Point, South Uist and the deflation sites of South Glendale, South Uist and Newtonferry, North Uist) within a rigorously-defined research framework.<br /><br />The machair sites were formed by sand accretion, facilitated by human activities ranging from construction to refuse disposal and cultivation. Their formation was intermittent and they underwent episodes of major erosion, isolating the sites from the landscape mass of the machair sands. Despite their apparent wealth of suitable material, the dating of Hebridean coastal sites presents special problems. The strategy here was to provide a dating framework for the sequences on each site, from which the dates of archaeological significant structures and events could then be arrived at by extrapolation. Preliminary dates from the earliest and latest strata at Balelone spanned such a small period that a First Millennium BC date-range could be assigned. At Baleshare, the deposits investigated were chiefly later Bronze Age; following abandonment (roughly 200 radiocarbon years) of the Period I cultivated soil Period II represented extensive, manured, cultivated fields in the vicinity of a settlement now lost to the sea. As Period II went on. the settlement seems to have moved closer to the excavated area. After another hiatus of a minimum of 350 radiocarbon years, there were further cultivated plots and associated settlement of Iron Age date (Period III). By contrast, the site at Hornish Point (including successive wheelhouses and associated cultivation areas) is considered to be all of one - dynamic, Iron Age - period, lasting some 300 radiocarbon years (with potentially earlier structures unexcavated). A post-medieval blackhouse of characteristic Lewisian form had been cut into the settlement mound. The three dates from Newtonferry suggest that some Early Medieval activity took place at the site, while the bulk of the deposits date from the thirteenth-fourteenth centuries AD. At South Glendale, the radiocarbon dates indicate occupation sometime between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries AD; stratigraphically lower, fragmented and truncated remains were prehistoric, probably early Bronze Age.

Two rescue excavations at the northern edge of a rather sparsely occupied part of the interior of Caithness are reported here, lying near to one of the largest clusters of archaeological sites in the modern county. In the event, the monuments were not threatened, and survive.<br /><br />Because of the limited nature of the excavation at Loch Shurrery (NGR ND 043568),the main value of the evidence about the hut circle relates to its structure and dating. The excavated remains represented a medium-sized oval house with a west-facing entrance. It had an off-centre hearth of rectangular construction. It was rather different in structure to the majority of the small group of such sites which have been excavated in the northern part of the Scottish mainland, as it did not appear to have an internal ring of post holes. In addition, its western entrance is not matched at the other sites, where entrance orientations are to the south, east or south-east. The wall of the Loch Shurrery house was fairly thick and the excavation suggested that it was complex, while the entrance passageway was quite long. The existence of door checks is also an unusual feature and may relate to the entrance structures of brochs and other substantial roundhouses. Two samples of charcoal from the hearth inside the hut circle were submitted for radiocarbon dating: the determinations produce calibrated ranges (at 2-sigma) of 346-4 cal BC and 341 cal BC-1 cal AD. It is likely that most of the excavated, undecorated pottery is also Iron Age, part of a broad tradition of very coarsely tempered pottery. Not-withstanding evidence of extended occupation, the whole period of construction and occupation may have occurred within the Iron Age.<br /><br />The mound of Lambsdale Leans (NGR ND 051548)lies in Reay parish, situated on low-lying ground at the head of Loch Shurrery and close to where its main tributary (the Torran Water) enters the loch from the south. The main characteristics of the this partially-excavated site are the presence of what appeared to be two extended inhumations and the remnants of possible structures associated with several layers of burnt material. Lambsdale Leans itself was a natural mound, of elongated shape and composed largely of sand, into which were set the burials and structural remains. The burials (one certainly female, the other probably so) were not in cists. The structural remains, while not fully excavated, accord well with the general tenor of the available evidence of later first millennium AD buildings in the north of Scotland. Both structures at Lambsdale Leans had floors comprising roughly laid paving, edged with upright slabs, and with an outer kerb of stones. The earliest-dated pottery sherds, unstratified, are from a single grass- tempered handmade vessel whose form cannot be determined. Overall,on one interpretation the Lambsdale Leans evidence favours a context within the Early Medieval period in Caithness. The pottery however, being mostly C12-C13 oxidised wheel-thrown vessels, can be seen to support the suggestion that occupation on the site may have begun in the Medieval period.

As part of the Historic Scotland Human Remains Call Off Contract, Glasgow Univ ersity Archaeological Research Division (GUARD)undertook an archaeological excavation of a prehistoric urned cremation deposit within a boulder shelter at Glennan, Kilmartin, Argyll and Bute (NGR NM86220097). Analysis has shown the cremation was of a male probably aged between 25 and 40 years. He had suffered from slight spinal joint disease, and mild iron deficiency anaemia, though neither seems likely to have affected his general health. He was cremated shortly after death, together with a young sheep/goat, and their remains were subsequently picked from the pyre and co-mingled before burial in the urn. An unburnt retouched flint flake was recovered which may have accompanied the burial. The closest parallels for the cremation container are found within the tradition of Enlarged Food Vessel urns, a tradition that is poorly dated but probably has a currency in the first half of the second millennium BC. Radiocarbon dating was problematic: a sample of heather-type charcoal from the fill of the urn was dated and provided a range of cal AD1260-1390 at 2 sigma (OxA-10281). A second date was obtained from a sample of hazel charcoal from the lowest part of the fill of the urn, which provided a range of 3370-2920 cal BC at 2 sigma (GU-9598). There are sufficient examples of animal bone previously found accompanying Bronze Age burials to suggest that animals may have had a role in mortuary rites before burial of human remains, though the role and status of these animal remains is not always clear. Although the sample is small, the evidence suggests that, depending on the burial rite, some species of animals were considered more appropriate than others for inclusion; pigs associated with inhumation and goat/sheep associated with cremation burials. The choice of a domesticated animal to accompany the mortuary rites may have been of significance during a period when agro-pastural farming was being widely practiced, and may reflect the perceived inter-relationship between the cultural landscape of people and their livestock. The context of deposition of an Enlarged Food Vessel urn at Glennan, in a boulder shelter in the uplands, provides an interesting contrast with the known deposition of Food Vessels focused on the valley floor at Kilmartin. It indicates that while many of the more visible ceremonial and funerary sites of the second millennium BC may focus on the floor of the glen, other parts of the landscape were also significant in terms of such activities.<br /><br /><em>POSTSCRIPT</em> The cremated bone from the Glennan urn, that had previously given some problematic dates (Report Section 8) has now (March 2004) produced a result of 3615+/-35BP (GrA-24861). At 2130-1880 calBC (2-sigma), this is well within the range of dates for such Vase Urns. The author of SAIR 8 acknowledges the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland for funding this radiocarbon date and the National Museums of Scotland Dating Cremated Bone Project (especially Dr Alison Sheridan) for organising it.

In 2002, an examination was carried out of a small quartz vein at the knoll of Cnoc Dubh, a few hundred metres from the southern shores of Loch Ceann Hulabhig on the Isle of Lewis (NGR NB 2318 2998). The vein proved to have been worked in prehistoric time, defining it as a quarry, and it was measured, photographed and characterized. In the present paper, the Cnoc Dubh quartz quarry is presented in detail, to allow comparison with other lithic quarries, and it is attempted to define attributes diagnostic of prehistoric exploitation, and to schematically describe the 'mining operations' by which the quartz was procured. As part of this process,quartz quarrying is compared to the procurement of other lithic and stone raw materials, mainly drawing on research from Scandinavia, Australia and the USA, and the location of quartz quarries in relation to prehistoric settlements is discussed. The average distance between quartz sources and Neolithic - Bronze Age sites on Lewis is then used to discuss ownership of, and access to, prehistoric quartz sources, as well as the possible exchange of quartz.

As part of the Historic Scotland Human Remains Call Off Contract, Glasgow University Archaeological Research Division (GUARD) undertook an archaeological evaluation of the find spot of a human skull from a cairn at Loch Borralie, Sutherland (NGR NC 3790 6761). Excavation recovered the remains of two burials beneath the cairn and established that the cairn was multi-phased. One individual was an adult male (Skeleton 1), while the other was immature and of undeterminable sex (Skeleton 2). Both individuals showed signs of ill health, and dogs and/or rats appear to have gnawed their bones. A ring-headed pin was recovered close to Skeleton 1 during the excavation. A radiocarbon date was obtained from the left humerus of Skeleton 1 of 40 cal BC - cal AD210 at 2 sigma (OxA-10253). Excavation revealed that the cairn, broadly sub-rectangular in form, had a maximum height of 1.2m and was composed of large, sub-angular and sub-rounded rocks (including quartz and quartzite) and occasional rounded cobbles within yellow-orange sand. One inhumation, Skeleton 2, lay within an irregular grave, cut through the red brown sand that was sealed by the cairn and into the natural gravel sand below. The other inhumation, Skeleton 1, was sealed by the red brown sand and had been placed on a low primary cairn of stone and earth, the full extent and depth of which remains unknown. The tradition of extended inhumations within sub-rectangular cairns is a recognised funerary practice in the north of Britain during the first millennium AD. Many of these burials are generally considered to be Pictish in date, but Loch Borralie indicates that the tradition commenced in the Iron Age. There is increasing evidence for the variety of ways in which human remains were treated after death in the Iron Age, including cremations in re-used cists, single inhumations in graves and cists, multiple inhumations and the incorporation of human remains in 'domestic' contexts. The results of the excavation of the burial mound at Loch Borralie provide a useful addition to the range of mortuary and funerary rites which were practised during the Iron Age in Scotland.

This report sets out the results of a programme of topographic survey, geophysical survey, field walking and trial excavation, carried out in 1998-99 and funded by Historic Scotland, in and around an extensive upland prehistoric landscape in the Upper Clyde Valley. It was designed to build on the results of limited excavation of a large, late Neolithic enclosure at Blackshouse Burn, South Lanarkshire (centred at NGR NS 9528 4046) and preliminary survey of nearby monuments undertaken in the 1980s, and to identify and characterize prehistoric settlement in the adjacent valleys through field walking. Topographic survey of the enclosures at Blackshouse Burn, Meadowflatts and Chester Hill, and of hut circles, clearance cairns and a possible ring cairn on Cairngryffe and Swaites Hills, recorded a complex ritual and domestic landscape: evidence of the longstanding prehistoric occupation of the Pettinain Uplands. The geophysical survey of Chester Hill enclosure found traces of internal structures and quarry scoop, while geophysical survey of part of the large Blackshouse Burn monument and smaller adjacent enclosure found evidence for a curvilinear feature in the large enclosure and a possible screen in its entrance. The systematic examination of ploughed fields in the valleys to the west and south-west of the upland monument complex discovered several concentrations of lithics, most notably evidence of late Mesolithic tool production and late Neolithic to early Bronze Age tool production and domestic activity. Trial trenches excavated over a late Mesolithic cluster at Carmichael found a knapping floor and several structural features.

As part of the Historic Scotland Human Remains Call Off Contract, Glasgow University Archaeological Research Division (GUARD) undertook an archaeological excavation of an artificial mound and associated cists containing human remains of mid-Bronze Age date, at Ferndale, Rendall, Orkney. The excavation identified the presence of two cists containing cremation burials (cist 004 and cist 010), and a third that contained a poorly preserved inhumation (cist 003). Cists 004 and 010 would appear to be related to an artificially created mound, and parallel a number of similar 'barrow' sites from Orkney. Cist 004 contained an inhumation and was of differing construction. It would appear to relate to a different phase and tradition of cist burials. Analysis of skeletal material from cist 004 identified the remains of an older adult male, a female of between 18 and 30 years of age and an infant of 15 months. The adult male was found to have suffered from a bone infection of the femur and showed evidence of poor dental health. The female had suffered from iron deficiency anaemia. The preservation of skeletal material in cists 010 and 003 allowed only the identification of a single adult inhumation of unknown age and sex from each cist. The individuals from cists 004 and 010 had been cremated shortly after death, and analysis of associated soil residues suggests that their remains were subsequently picked from the pyre and washed. Radiocarbon dates from the cremated remains from cists 004 and 010 place the use of these two cists and construction of the associated mound in the first quarter of the second millennium BC. These dates are comparable to other dated cist burials in artificial mounds from Orkney, although it would appear to be one of the earlier sites in the currently available list of dates. Regrettably, a date could not be obtained from the poorly preserved inhumation from cist 003.

In response to the threat posed by marine and river erosion, a series of deeply stratified midden deposits was excavated in caves leading off a narrow, rock-cut inlet known as the Geodha Smoo, near Durness, Sutherland. These included the famous Smoo Cave (NGR: NC 4136 6714), at the southern end of the inlet; two smaller caves cut into the western wall of the inlet (Glassknapper's Cave and Antler Cave); and a fourth cave (Wetweather Cave) in the eastern wall. The majority of excavated deposits from these caves appear to relate to Viking/Norse or post-Norse activity, with fish bones, marine shells and mammal and bird bones representing the processing and consumption of marine and terrestrial foods. Possible evidence for metalsmithing in the form of iron slag and boat nails could suggest that boats were repaired in the sheltered inlet. Four radiocarbon dates from Smoo Cave and Glassknapper's Cave provide evidence for use of these sites between the eighth and 11th centuries AD. Convincing evidence for pre-Norse activity, although unsupported by radiocarbon dates, was recovered from Glassknapper's Cave in the form of probable Iron Age pottery, while late Neolithic pottery came from floor deposits in the Wetweather Cave.

An archaeological excavation was carried out at Gearraidh na h'Aibhne near Calanais on the Isle of Lewis by Northamptonshire Archaeology, working for Glasgow University Archaeological Research Division (GUARD) as part of the Historic Scotland Human Remains Call Off Contract. The site, initially interpreted as a cist potentially containing a bog body, was identified during annual peat cutting. Excavation demonstrated that the feature was in fact an oval pit containing a quantity of hazel branches, capped with a number of flat slabs of Lewisian Gneiss. Several similar stones had been placed in the base of the feature, overlying more hazel branches.<br /><br />The observation of several branches placed vertically at the edges of the cut suggests that the wood remains may have originally constituted a wicker structure or basket. Further evidence of anthropogenic activity was identified in the form of bent and/or twisted hazel rods and cut marks on a larger piece of wood. Growth-ring analysis of the hazel pieces identified two distinct age clusters: a large group of pieces between five and seven years old and a smaller group between ten and 13 years old, indicating the hazel branches had been deliberately selected for size. Analysis of preserved botanical macrofossil remains indicated that heather type stems and Sphagnum moss might have been incorporated or deposited into the structure. Two radiocarbon dates of 1080-830 BC (SUERC-2086) and 1000-830 BC (SUERC-2087) at 2-sigma probability were obtained from two discrete samples of hazel, suggesting the structure was constructed and deposited during the Late Bronze Age.